


All Ye All Ye, Come For Free

by vachtar



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Assorted Crimes, Multi, Pre-Canon, Slice of Life, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:40:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24287524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vachtar/pseuds/vachtar
Summary: “That’s the idea. It’s like kindling, you know? We start there, pretty soon all of Ormond’s a bunch of charcoal.”
Relationships: Joey/Julie/Frank Morrison/Susie
Comments: 7
Kudos: 17
Collections: Villain of My Own Story Exchange 2020





	All Ye All Ye, Come For Free

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/gifts).



The crowd of people in the house is dense and damp. Julie’s fucking makeup is going to sweat off her face if she doesn’t get a little air soon. For a town with barely six thousand people, Ormond still manages to turn out in numbers when word gets out around the high school that Julie’s parents are gone for the weekend and she’s got a line on a couple of kegs from the creep at the liquor store with the mustache and the crush on her. 

She stomps through the throng, knocking elbows into guts and snapping at a grade 9 who doesn’t move out of her way fast enough. Finally she gets to the basement and slams the door shut behind her.

“How’s the adoring public?” Susie asks, looking up from where she’s hunched over Joey’s hand and flashing a lazy smile. The bleached ends of her hair are fading and fraying and she’s drowning in her raggedy sweatshirt. There’s a sort of fuzziness to her expression that’s probably explained by the small tower of beer cans assembled next to the futon and the general fog of weed in the room..

“Fucking animals. How’s your little private party going?” Julie says, lets the sneer into her voice and Joey waves the middle finger of his free hand at her without sitting up from where he’s sprawled on the futon. Susie drags another coat of black paint over the thumbnail she’s working on and nods lazily, deeming her work good.

“Pretty good. Jojo here,” she leans forward and smacks a chapsticky kiss to Joey’s forehead, “is stoned out of his fucking mind.”

“And you’re not?”

“I didn’t say _that_.” Susie stretches and scoots back so there’s room for Julie beside her on the futon. She’s pleasantly warm where she leans up against Julie’s side.

“Where’s your new bestie?” Susie asks.

“Late, that’s where. He said he’d be here an hour ago. No word yet.” Oh, she kind of regrets telling Susie about Frank. This jealousy thing is weird, but then, Julie’s never been as interested in someone as she is in Frank. Susie’s had her basically to herself since second grade. Even Joey only hangs out with them half the time.

“Man of mystery,” mumbles Joey. He’s going cross-eyed examining the color on his fingernails, dragging scoremarks in the tacky paint over his thumb. Susie digs around in her hoodie pocket until she finds a half-smoked blunt to pass to Julie.

“Do you wanna do something tonight? I mean after the lame party is done.” Julie shrugs and lights up.

“Sure. If mister I’m-hiding-in-the-basement-from-a-party-in-my-honor is down.” The smoke floods her lungs and she fiddles with the poorly wrapped end of the blunt. “For real, Joey, you’re the whole reason I’ve got a bunch of drunk-ass sixteen-year-olds to clean up after later. If I’d known you guys were just gonna camp out here I’d have saved myself the trouble, we could’ve had the kegs to ourselves.” Joey snorts and flails around by the side of the futon until his hand knocks into a can of beer. Empty, and he groans and flops back down.

“Right, like you need an excuse to throw a party,” he says. Julie shrugs and passes him an unopened can, which he takes with a nod of gratitude and slugs half of in one go.

“No one needs an excuse for a party. The excuse is we live in fucking Ormond and we’ll all die of boredom if we can’t get drunk at least once a week. I’m doing my civic duty. Case, point.” Julie gestures between the three of them.

Susie grins at her, all brace face and crooked eyeliner because she’s never gotten the hang of making it match. “Yeah, we know, you’re a saint, Jules.”

“Damn straight.” She kicks back. Upstairs, she hears a kid shriek and then a roaring wave of laughter. She’d meant for this party to be on the smaller side, but word got out around the high school and it was all over. She’s pretty sure some of these people carpooled in from two towns over for the honor of getting shitfaced on her mom’s beloved puke-green couch. Lucky them.

The door to the basement rattles and swings open. Julie turns and makes to shout at whatever drunk townie is stumbling down to get the fuck out, but freezes when she sees who it is. Frank’s wearing the same jacket as when she met him, dirty jeans and a backpack slung over his shoulder. He grins down at them.

“Hey, Julie.”

“When’d you get here?” she asks. Susie and Joey are blatantly sizing him up. He tramps down the stairs to sprawl out in the shitty armchair beside the futon and rummages around in his backpack for something, tosses a paper bag into Julie’s lap. She tips it open and a bottle of vodka drops onto her legs - the nice stuff, the kind of thing the creep at the liquor store keeps stocked in clear sight of the till so it’s harder to steal. Although apparently not hard enough to keep it out of Frank’s hands.

“Call it a hostess gift. I just got here a few minutes ago; you were playing hard to find, huh. They’re busting into the second keg up there, think the first one ended up on the roof.” He sounds pleased about that, or at least amused.

“So you’re Frank.” Joey’s boosted himself up to sitting to scrutinize Frank; Julie shoots him a look that says _don’t_ and he cheerfully ignores it.

“That’s me.” Franks leans forward on his knees, grinning right back at Joey. Somehow all the chill has bled out of the room and it’s just four-way tension pinging off every inch of them.

“How long have you lived in Ormond?” shoots Susie.

Frank shrugs. “Three years, in a few months. Don’t spend much time in town though.”

“What do you do?” Susie’s leaning in too now, the mean look she used to get in high school creeping over her face - the one that’s like a dog who’s found a really fucking good stick and isn’t going to let it go, no matter how much you yell. Her eyes are bright and clear of the fogginess from earlier. Joey looks half-sober with interest now too.

Frank leans back and watches them both thoughtfully, flashes a quick smirk Julie’s way like he’s figured something out. “What’s with the third degree?” he asks.

“Just curious.” Joey’s pretending like he doesn’t care but Julie knows he’s paying attention, the same way she had when she first met Frank. Frank’s got that cult-leader charisma, the kind where you desperately want him to like you even when you should know better. Julie definitely knows better, she’s just not sure she cares. 

She’s so fucking bored of this town.

* * *

The bell over the door clangs.

Joey sees the guy come in out of the corner of his eye. There’s a brief glimpse of a camo hat before he turns down the aisle and out of view of the till. Joey looks up from the catalogue he’s scribbling on and watches him head for the car supplies. Just some redneck looking for motor oil, whatever. He turns the volume back up on his earbuds and feels the music trembling in his eardrums.

The store’s been quiet today, and Joey is going out of his mind with boredom. That’s not exactly unusual; Ormond’s hardly a hotbed of activity during the peak times, which these days are basically never. This late in winter it’s dead quiet, those lucky enough to be able having flown the coop. Joey is not that lucky; Joey is stuck fighting with his brother and trying not to piss off his dad enough to get kicked out, and splitting the rest of his time between getting fired and rehired at an assortment of shitty jobs and bumming around with Julie and Susie.

And now Frank. If you’d asked Joey a couple months ago what it’d take to liven up Ormond he would’ve said it was impossible, but Frank manages somehow. He’s always turning up with some drug Joey’s never heard of, or a bottle of his favorite whiskey, or cigarettes that have to cost more than a day’s pay they go down so smoothly. No idea where he gets them, but he doles them out to Joey and the girls like he’s their magnanimous benefactor and then drags them out into the woods to set fire to shit or throw knives at targets Frank’s made up to look like whoever’s pissed him off most recently. It’s kind of fucking great.

The guy in the camo hat slouches back up to the till with his motor oil and a handful of prepackaged jerky sticks. He sneers at some facet of Joey that pisses him off on an inherent level, take your pick which one, and Joey grins at him like he doesn’t notice and deliberately shorts his change.

“Marco, break, cover,” he shouts into the back of the store once camo asshole has left, and waits until he hears a low grumble and Marco bitching about his knees, and the cold, and goddamn punk kids who’re always smoking out back, before he slips out the back door and fumbles for a cigarette.

Outside it’s hitting dusk, but this time of year that’s not exactly late. The snow’s light today, mostly mushy half-rain. Four hours left in his shift. Then he can go home, dodge his dad on the way out for his night shift, spend the evening home alone. Maybe he’ll see if the girls are around. A car passes outside and kicks up slush and a spray of muddy water. Or maybe he’ll just go home and smoke up and pass out.

He leans up against the dumpster and fumbles with his lighter in quickly numbing fingers for a second before someone else crowds into his vision. He knows without thinking about it that it’s Frank. They’re the same height, more or less, but Frank still manages to loom. He grins and flicks the lighter between their fingers, holds it steady for Joey to get his cigarette going.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Joey takes a drag and blows out a cloud of smoke. Frank leans up beside him and watches him for a second before he snatches the cigarette out of his fingers and sucks down fully half of it in one go. He holds the smoke in for a second, leans into Joey’s personal space and exhales when their faces are centimeters apart.

Joey inhales, somewhere between surprise and not wanting to waste the nicotine, and Frank seals their mouths together. Not exactly a kiss, just passing the smoke back and forth between them until it’s all gone and Frank pulls back and looks stupidly fucking smug. Joey tosses the cigarette down, lets the last chunk of it sputter out in the snow and pushes Frank up against the wall to kiss him properly. Somehow it still feels like Frank orchestrated this. Joey grabs for his hips and tilts his head, kisses him the same way he saw Frank doing with Julie two days ago. He thinks he gets the appeal, if he turns his head sideways and squints. Frank grins and elbows Joey out of his space.

“Going up to the lodge tonight. You in? I got mortars.” Where the fuck did Frank get mortars in the middle of nowhere in the middle of November?

“You’re gonna burn that place down some day.” But the idea sends a pleased little thrill up his spine. 

“That’s the idea. It’s like kindling, you know? We start there, pretty soon all of Ormond’s a bunch of charcoal.” He can’t tell half the time if Frank even knows what he’s saying but it doesn’t matter, at this point they’re all tripping over themselves for his attention anyway. 

“Sure. Lets go set some shit on fire.” Of course, with this much snow and slush, it’ll take a lot of accelerant to get things going. Frank grins and slings an arm around his shoulder, jostles them together. He’s warm even through his jacket.

“You need any more supplies?” he asks, watching Frank out of the corner of his eye. His lungs itch for another cigarette.

“What did you have in mind?” Joey nods behind them to the store.

“Marco’s a fucking senile, you could sneak past him easy. Lighter fluid’s on the far wall. I just restocked it this morning. Just avoid the camera, I don’t wanna get fired again.”

“That’s optimistic. Susie’s got twenty bucks on you getting canned this week.”

“Bitch.” Frank snorts.

“Least she gave you that long. Julie owes me big, she thought you were gone two days ago. No faith.”

“What’s she owe you?” He thinks he’s supposed to be jealous. Frank kisses him like some spur of the moment thing except he does it at least once a week, and he makes out with Julie at parties when they’re both plastered, and he hasn’t caught him doing anything but looking at Susie yet but that doesn’t mean nothing’s going on there. Somehow there’s still enough to go around.

Frank just shrugs instead of answering. 

Marco’s gonna start yelling for him in a minute if Joey doesn’t get back inside. Now that he knows Susie’s got money riding on it there’s no way he’s getting fired for the next week at least. He heads back inside and resumes his post slouched over the counter, flexing his hands as they prickle and defrost and pointedly not noticing the hood slinking down the farthest aisle.

(That night they get a bonfire going that’s taller than Joey’s head and keep it going all night, feeding it shitty porno mags Susie stole from the convenience store and Frank’s mortars just to deafen themselves with the explosions, and Frank crawls into his lap and sucks on his tongue and he tastes like shitty beer, and Joey still manages to drag himself into work mostly on time the next morning, so fuck you, Susie.)

* * *

She always liked the video rental store. When she was little her mom used to take her there, before the divorce, and she’d pick out a VHS to watch while they ate pizza. Ormond didn’t feel as small when she was small herself. Now the store looks dingy and neon in alternating blinks. The guy behind the counter recognizes Frank when they come in. He looks like he can’t decide if he wants to greet them or run. They get that a lot these days, when they go in a pack. It’s nice to be seen.

“Heya, Jeffrey.” Frank grins at him and leans over the counter so his jacket rides up and the hunting knife he carries around on his belt is exposed. He’s so flashy about it. Julie, too, since the day he gave her a matching one and it made her blush like a weirdo. Cashier guy - Jeffrey, and Frank doesn’t usually bother to remember anyone’s name - goes still. He’s got paint on his hands, red and black and a smear of green.

“Hi, Frank.”

“Meet my friends yet?” He turns to wave at the rest of them - Julie looking bored, Joey raiding the candy rack. And Susie, still standing in the doorway. Jeffrey nods at her.

“Good to see you.” He doesn’t say anything more, and eventually Frank gets tired of creeping him out and wanders off to look at tapes. Jeffrey’s got a stereo going low behind the counter, something metal-y she doesn’t recognize but she taps her foot to the beat a little anyway. Not as fast as she likes but pretty close. Jeffrey watches Frank, or at least the back of his hood in the aisles. She wonders if he notices Joey and Julie pocketing candy and chooses not to react. Maybe he’s smart, or maybe he’s just that fucking stupid.

Frank reappears before she gets too restless, throwing down a stack of videos which he actually pays for, which is weird. Jeffrey just nods at him as they go like he’s got some kind of silent camaraderie with them. Freaky.

On the sidewalk outside, Julie kicks snow at her and offers her a bag of Skittles to make up for the mud melting through Susie’s leggings. She accepts and pours a handful into her palm, picks the green ones out and passes them back to Julie because they’re her favorites. That gets her a sheepish smile and a fond elbow to the shoulder because Julie hit a growth spurt last year that left her freaky tall, at least compared to Susie. The late evening wind is blustering Julie’s hair into a dark void around her head and she’s grinning with all her teeth and Susie loves her kind of a lot.

Susie’s first kiss was with Julie, when they were thirteen. They were scrambling over something, the TV remote or a magazine or the last of the beers Julie’d smuggled out of her dad’s cooler, whatever excuse they had that day. And her face had cracked into Julie’s collarbone, and she’d been blinking spots out of her eyes, and then there’d been a clumsy tongue in her mouth. It took some practice to get it right, with Julie and later with Brendan from math class who yelped when she bit his tongue, and then back to Julie because at least she didn’t complain. 

“Jules?” she asks.

“Mmhm.”

“Do you think you’re gonna leave Ormond when you’re older?”

It’s a dumb fucking question, she knows that as soon as she says it and resists the urge to berate herself. Of course Julie wants to get out. She’s hated this town since they were kids, barely tolerates anyone besides Susie and Joey (and, now, _Frank_ ) except to invite them to ragers just so she has some entertainment. But Julie just rolls her shoulders in a lazy shrug.

“Do you think we’re getting much older?” she asks, wiggling her eyebrows at Susie and snorting at whatever expression must be plastered all over her face. “I figured the goal was to crash and burn way before _older_ is a problem. Maybe literally if Joey doesn’t learn how to fucking drive one of these days.” Her voice pitches louder at the last and Joey half-turns and waves a middle finger in their general direction.

“I mean, you always said you wanted to get out. But it feels like lately you want that, like, less.” They’re both entirely too stoned to be having this conversation. Julie sighs and a puff of cold air drifts out in front of her face. 

“Is this about Frank? You’re always weird about Frank.”

“I like Frank.” It’s not a lie. Frank’s got something about him that gets under her skin, makes her want to follow him anywhere. It’s just that he’s got the same kind of effect on Julie, and Joey, and some scared little kid at the back of her mind wonders if they’re gonna run out and leave her behind someday. She likes being part of the pack, being wrapped up in something bigger than herself.

Ahead of them, the boys are jostling each other for space on the sidewalk, and Julie drops an arm around her shoulders and watches them, stupidly fond when they can’t see her. Susie’s seen the way she looks at them, at Frank, the way he looks back at her. She’s not stupid. She wonders if Frank knows where Julie learned to kiss and decided she hopes he doesn’t, just so she can keep some selfish little part of her for herself. 

Frank turns back for them, because he’s a got goddamn ESP and a sixth sense for when Susie’s getting caught up in her own head. “C’mon, we got places to be,” he shouts, and Julie mutters under her breath _we’re in fucking Ormond, where is there to be_ because she’s always a drama queen. Susie picks out another couple green Skittles from her hand and slaps them into Julie’s mouth to shut her up, and shoves the rest of the bag into her hoodie pocket.

She’s got the boxcutter she nicked the last time she visited Joey at work tucked in her waistband, the plastic casing riding warm against her skin. Between that and Julie and the boys beside her she feels a little invincible. Her mom always tells her all teenagers feel that way (you’re not even nineteen yet Susie, don’t get carried away) but her mom’s been jumping at shadows since the first diagnosis. Her mom never threw a brick through a window just ‘cause Frank gave her that smile and or broke down in semi-hysterical giggles after. They’re something new, something special. The rest of Ormond won’t know what fucking hit it.

* * *

There’s blood on his arm, splattered nearly to the shoulder. His knife, returned to his hand, is completely soaked. It shakes in his loose grip as Joey makes their way up the old, unkept roads to the lodge, for once doing his best to mind the speed limit.

In the backseat, Julie’s slouched against the window, exhausted, and Susie’s curled into her lap. He should feel bad for pushing her. He doesn’t. _Shy, naive Susie._ He’d thought everyone had misjudged her but maybe it was just him. She chafed at the bit in small town suburbia but she wasn’t a killer until Frank put a knife in her hand and made her cut. 

Look at him, getting all philosophical. He guesses this is the time to do it. A first kill is symbolic; a threshold breached. Sealed in blood. No going back now.

He wonders if the others know it’s his first. They’ve known each other for years, and him only a few months, and they sure fell in lockstep fast. Like they think he knows what he’s doing. Like he can get them out.

Well. He can get them through this, at least.

The lodge looms ahead, a corpse of a building, and Joey parks just outside its shadow. Julie rouses Susie in the backseat and they all stand together shivering for a moment before Julie kicks herself into movement. She fishes the shovels they’d stolen ( _in for a penny_ ) out of the backseat and faces down the trunk for a second, trembling, before Joey reaches past her and opens it.

The janitor was a big man and it takes all of them to drag him out. They’d found a tarp but he’s been oozing blood the whole ride and it’s a slippery mess to get him hauled into a patch of snow that looks promising. Joey turns away from the body and makes a first stab into the dirt, barely managing to chip off a little at the top. This is going to take awhile.

Frank’s muscles are burning by the time they break through the frozen top layer. Susie’s shaking all over, even with Julie’s jacket wrapped around her shoulders, and Joey’s been panting since the beginning like he can’t quite calm himself down. Julie’s the only one steady on her feet, expression like a chip of ice.

He takes a couple heavy steps back and leans on his shovel, trying to catch his breath. The janitor in his tarp lies there in accusation. _Did you intend to go this far? Or did you just see someone laying hands on Julie and lose your mind for a second? Are you in control of any of this?_ Frank turns away, and that’s when he sees it, a movement in the woods. A hand? 

The hunting knife found its way back into his grip somehow. When did he pick it up? The handle should be slippery but it’s just solid, comfortable and right in his fingers. He takes another step back, away from the body, towards the woods. Another, another. Julie and Joey and Susie work at the earth in a steady rhythm. They didn’t see the hand; maybe it’s not meant for them. It’s beckoning to Frank.

The sound of shovels hitting the dirt beats like a metronome behind him. His feet find the rhythm without any conscious thought, stagger him further into the woods. It’s cold - it’s always cold, but now it’s biting through his jacket. He holds the knife tighter and keeps going.

He’s not used to being alone anymore. The path is narrowing as he walks, pinning him tighter and tighter down, but it still feels like too much room for one man. It’d been years with no one but Clive around at the most, but now without his gang he feels - not vulnerable. Just singular. It doesn’t sit well in his chest and he jams his feet a little harder into the snow to make his footprints easier to track. He’s not supposed to be just one, and neither are they. And they know it as well and as deliriously as he does, and they’ll come for him as long as he leaves a path for them to follow. He can do that.

In the dark of the forest, spiderweb branches reach down and write tender lines across his mask, his face, and he pushes deeper into the fog.


End file.
